Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.
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Notes -
So this is the opposite of a small-scale question, but similar to what I posted below, I’ve been going through somewhat of an existential crisis about mortality and the purpose of human life.
I want to hear all of your beliefs about the big mysterious questions. For my entire life until now I have been the hardest of hard materialist/physicalist atheists. Surprise surprise that at 32 that doesn’t fill the god-shaped hole in my heart anymore.
I’m currently just thinking about how weird all of this is. Is the universe an eternal thing? Is it a simulation? How do you actually handle the hard problem of consciousness? The Fermi paradox?
Something that has been tempting me is Michael Huemer’s argument about infinite reincarnation, very similar to nietzsche’s eternal recurrence. Essentially the bastardized argument is that if the universe is infinite in both temporal directions and you already were plucked from nothingness and given consciousness once, it will happen again even if the probability is infinitesimally small (because if time is infinite it’s bound to happen).
So what do you all think? What gives you comfort when pondering mortality?
Regardless of the numbers we plug into Fermi's equations, the best evidence that we have no competitor civilizations contesting the observable universe is the fact that most stars still shine, instead of glowing dull in infrared after every available erg of power has been used and reused. Or the fact that we're around to ask that question, instead of Sol being munched on by Von-Neumann replicators. If there's pond scum out there, what of it? It would be even more unlikely that we do have near-peers out there, since the window for a civilization to not have noticeable impact on the wider world is narrow in geological time scales.
As for questions of being in a simulation, or a Boltzmann Brain, our decision theories are simply not up to the task of handling such infinities and infinitesimals. As far as I can tell, in such epistemic uncertainty, the way to act in a manner that minimizes hindsight regret is to act as if our existence is as real as it gets.
If the universe is an illusion, then so am I, hence it is Real enough for me
This is, of course, more applicable at the individual rather than civilizational level. A sufficiently advanced civ should absolutely do everything they can to poke at the universe and see what happens, but that's not your concern today, or mine.
If this approach seems unsatisfactory, I can only apologize sincerely. A god-shaped hole is one of many human design flaws we have yet to fix. Cheer up nonetheless, we're busy making entities that may end up to us as we are the butterfly is to the dreamer, and they might have answers. May said answers be within our ability to grasp. Perhaps making our own Gods can fill that hole instead? I'd rather not worship them myself, but each to their own.
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